


Clothing the Order

by songofsunset



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofsunset/pseuds/songofsunset
Summary: "Honestly who is in charge of the uniform requisition department in the Empire, and how much bullshit do they have to deal with"Del Klothier has an unexpected guest.





	Clothing the Order

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dubiousculturalartifact (222Ravens)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/222Ravens/gifts).



At first Del Klothier thought the figure was a hallucination brought on by too much alcohol.

To be fair, he still hadn't ruled that out.

But as Del sat in his quarters mumbling complaints under his breath, drinking away the frustrations of trying to create and maintain uniforms for the whole of the First Order, and a faintly glowing figure nodded and said, "I know, exactly, and then they always try to scrub out the bloodstains with hot water and expect it to actually help. Bloody troops need to spend a day in the fabrication unit for once in their lives," Del decided that, whatever this insubstantial figure in too many belted layers of deceptively simple clothing was, he was a kindred spirit in Del's suffering, and to not to question it that much.

The troops always DID try to use heat to remove stains, no matter how much he told them otherwise.

The figure waved his arms, continuing his impassioned rant, and Del took another drink.

\------

The next day, Del was pretty sure he'd imagined the whole thing, except that the table in his cramped quarters was covered in sketches of clothing he didn't remember designing. He squinted. Some of them were wearing layered garb, much like- no.

Even if he'd imagined meeting a man like that, and designed clothes based on what he'd seen, that didn't make it any more real. Some of the best artists in the galaxy were inspired by hallucinogens, this was no different. It didn't matter if these were the first non-commissioned clothes he'd designed in years, it didn't make them special.

Still, he filed the napkins away where the cleaning droids wouldn't get to them.

\------

Del stared blankly at the officer as his fabrication and ironing droids hissed around him.

"You want- a cape."

"Yes"

"A full bodied draping cape."

"Yes."

"To go with your- custom made chrome armor?"

"Yes. You'll find that the paperwork is in order, with all requisite authorizations."

Del blinked, but pulled up the relevant files on his datapad. This officer really did have all the necessary paperwork for a departure from the standard uniform. And she was going to use it for a cape.

"And did you have any color or fabric preferences?," Del asked, with as much professionalism as he could muster. "Perhaps a nice teal-"

"Black, obviously. Maybe some red trim. Something sturdy."

Well. At least it wouldn't show the bloodstains.

\------

That night, when Del got back to his quarters, the figure was there in all his layers of rough clothing, glowing faintly from the corner, welcoming him in with a loose wave.

Del hung up his blaster, and sat down to remove his boots. After the day he'd had, he might as well be seeing apparitions. At least they had decent opinions about clothing.

"You would not believe the day I've had," Del said.

"Capes, huh," said the figure.

"It's like a plague," Del said, wryly. "You let one whiny teenager have half a cape, and suddenly half the Order wants a bloody liability hanging from their shoulders. For a group that values conformity so much, you think I'd have to put up with less bullshit."

The figure nods. "I used to have an Order to clothe, and they were no better."

"Oh?" Del said, placing his boots by the door where they wouldn't get scuffed as he made dinner- then glanced at his pantry. Well, perhaps he would merely eat some ration packs and call it a day.

The figure was nodding. "I let mine have cloaks in their basic uniform. They're warm, I thought! Simple, versatile, excellent camouflage in less savory parts of the galaxy, and they make it harder for your opponent to cut off your limbs! And what did they do, every bloody time?"

Del was already nodding in sympathy, though his troops were more likely to end up with blaster scars than amputations. The principle was the same.

"They took the cloaks off! Just, stripped them off and left them there on the floor, not a thought to the resources involved in the fabrication, or the defensive potential or the hassle of replacement! I'd just get 'oh sorry master quartermaster sir, we didn't MEAN to lose our cloak into the swamps of an inhospitable moon, we always meant to go back for them, we just got distracted and didn't actually care!' It's like they think clothes just, grow from the ground or something."

They both took a moment to snort at this.

"Do you know-" the figure said, "HOW MANY CLOAKS I HAD TO REPLACE? For their bloody dramatic sensibilities?"

"Too many-"

"TOO MANY!!!" the figure said, and then- "Well. Of course you would understand, of all people. What is it for you?"

"Helmets."

"Helmets?"

"They take them off, you see. They want to be able to 'see better', as though I haven't specifically designed them for maximum defensive capability and visibility. These children are going into a war zone and the moment they get out of an officer's sight they can't be bothered to keep wearing carefully crafted alloys that might keep them from getting their brains blown out."

The figure looked solemn now, but nodded in agreement.

"And they lose them!" Del went on, then paused for a moment. "And if they don't lose them, sometimes the helmets get sent back to me, and I have to clean off the scorch marks and the splatters and fix them up for the next unfortunate bugger."

The figure seems lost in his memories now, and Del wants to reach forward, take his hand, tell him everything will be okay- but of course it won't be. It hasn't been for a long time, and if Del reaches out he has no way of knowing what his hands will find-

"They had me doing armor, near the end," the figure says finally, fiddling with a device at his waist. "It wasn't my specialty, of course. They'd always liked the natural fabrics, liked to pretend we were still a rustic little organization instead of a galaxy-spanning powerhouse." The figure unclips the device from his waist, stares at it like it holds the weight of the universe, and Del is slowly beginning to suspect that he might finally have a primary reference for the appearance of a lightsaber. "Then they made us generals, and sent us to battlefields, and too many of us started dying. And so I learned to make armor."

The figure looks up, meeting Del's eyes, and Del is struck by the sorrow there, the intensity of loss.

"It wasn't enough. It never will be."

\------

Del submits his resignation the following week, thanks his superiors for the opportunities they'd provided, and gives them a fake forwarding address.

He'd considered finding the rebels, seeing if they needed a man of his talents. Their General Leia in particular seemed like a woman of good taste- but no. Del was done putting clothes on boys who would be sent to die, to kill, to burn.

He'd had enough of it, and so had his new, if slightly incorporeal, companion, and for both their sakes Del was leaving.

The Order could continue without him, as best it could. And they would, Del knew. He wasn't special. 

But he leaves anyway, because he can and because he must, and he opens a tailor shop on a tiny backwater planet, as far away from the First Order as he knows how to get. He makes things he enjoys, and people wear them for years, and bring them in for repairs that have nothing to do with blaster fire. 

And a softly glowing figure watches him as he works, offering critiques and banter, and they are as happy as they know how to be in a galaxy like theirs.

\------

And halfway across the galaxy, children in flightsuits and white armor fight each other to the bitter, bloody, end. 

Del tries to put it out of his mind. He mostly succeeds. 

There is nothing he can do. 


End file.
